


you can be king again

by jonphaedrus



Category: Tales of Xillia
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-17
Updated: 2013-09-17
Packaged: 2017-12-26 21:29:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/970487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gais counts out his life in Lin, in moments where the other man made up the quiet and the noise that surrounded them.</p>
<p>Written to Lauren Aquilina's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iqf6aDclgSk">King</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you can be king again

Gais counts out his life in Lin, in moments where the other man made up the quiet and the noise that surrounded them.

 

 

 

He remembers, clearly, the first time that they met. Lin was—what, all of fourteen? He had long dark hair and dark eyes that spoke of anger and danger and death, but he bent his knee before Gaius anyway, even though he whispered words that reeked of disbelief. He originally came in with his promise to make sure that if Gaius ever broke, he would be there to either catch him, or kill him.

Gaius understood, and did not begrudge.

Eighteen was the first year he marked by Lin Long Dau.

 

 

 

When Kanbalar fell, Gaius was standing at the forefront, his sword humming with unrestrained energy, and behind him were his greatest warriors, the soldiers that had decided to give up their lives for him—and Lin, all bunched energy and coiled control. They had ripped the capital and the old regime apart together.

Gaius held tight to his sword, and let the adulations ring soundless in his ears, his adrenaline still pumping a mile an hour, and breathed. The war wasn't over until he was crowned.

When he was crowned, Lin holding the ancient dragonbone, Gaius bowed his head and closed his eyes, the Long Dau heir settled it on his head, and then bent over to whisper,

_You did well, sire._

It was the only praise that really meant anything, and when Lin stepped back and Wingul looked up at him, Gaius knew that he had succeeded in the only thing he had ever tried for, and rose from where he was kneeling to raise his sword in the air.

The shout of victory that resonated through the castle and out down the city made his heart pound, but the eyes that watched him were the only ones that mattered, yellow and quiet and calm and so knowing it burned him.

Twenty-three was the second year marked by Lin Long Dau.

 

 

 

When Jiao showed up wringing his hands, looking stricken and worried, Gaius had been right to be scared. He wasn't ever sure about anything when it came to Lin, he was an unstoppable force to Gaius' immovable object. He was dangerous. Left to his own devices, he would leave a swathe of death in his wake.

When Jiao took him to the testing facility, and showed him Lin collapsed in a bed unmoving, Gaius had felt a cold, slow hand knot and lock around his heart.

He had thought Wingul was gone on one of his many scouting missions. Erston Outway was nobody, nothing, from nowhere. Nobody cared what Erston Outway had to say, but they all feared King Gaius and would say nothing. So, instead, Lin Long Dau shed his Ebon Wing and went to the people, spent months with the clans, solidifying their support base. And that was where Gaius had thought he was this time.

But he was in a bed, hooked up to machines, his breath shallow and his eyes glazed and empty. It had been three months since Gaius had seen him, and now Wingul was a broken, glassy thing on a bedspread. They did not think he would wake up, even though one of their successes had already begun to get stronger—she was a little girl who clung to Jiao's hand and watched Wingul, almost afraid.

Gaius did not move from his bedside for days, held his thin, limp hands, pressed their foreheads together, whispered until his throat was dry and ached. Jiao just stayed away. There was nothing he could do. Nothing anybody could do, the doctors had given up on the broken body of bones dumped in the bed that was Lin.

When he woke up, it was Gaius' twenty-fifth birthday. It was the third year he marked by Lin Long Dau.

 

 

 

Milla could have closed the portal with the body inside of it. Gaius knew that. Milla could have forgotten it was there, or let it get lost. But no.

When she closed the portal, it shut and he was sitting there, a sprawled heap on the ground, and Gaius' heart formed a cold, aching ball in his chest. He had known Wingul was out there, waiting for them. He had known there was a chance—but knew, too, that none of them would ever have killed him unless—unless they had to.

And there he was. A broken, muddled heap on the ground.

Wrenching to his feet outside of Milla's shrine, Gaius pushed away Elize's small hands and the warmth of her artes and stumbled forward. He was still bleeding heavily, it would scar. He didn't care. Not when Wingul was laying there, shattered and still.

Gaius fell to his knees hard enough that he knew he would feel the bruises for days, and slumped next to Wingul. There was blood all over his face, matting his dark hair, and without thinking, he ripped off strips of his clothes, and wiped the blood away. His face was slack and closed off, his eyes wide—bloodshot, both of them, the retinas red around his pale yellow irises. Slowly, Gaius curled forward around him, pulled him close, and kissed his temple, cold and clammy.

He never wanted this. He never wanted Lin's collapsed body left in his arms like a sack of flour, he never wanted to have to live on without the partner of his life and his work. He wanted Lin to live on after him, not die before him. Apparently he had been unlucky. Apparently he had been wrong.

Lin had died to try to save him.

Gaius hadn't needed saving.

Thirty-two was the fourth year he marked by Lin Long Dau. It is the last year where Lin was with him to mark it.

 

 

 

The first year without Lin Gaius tried not to count.

The pneumonia that he ended up getting when he collapsed on Lin's grave left him sick for weeks, weak and shaking when he recovered. He didn't try to go see Lin again.

Thirty-three was the fifth year he marked by Lin Long Dau. The first one he marked alone.

 

 

 

The tenth anniversary came and Gaius took his first vacation in a long time, and left Kanbalar for several weeks. He wasn't worried about the government—for a few weeks, Rowen and Yurgen and the others could handle things. He needed some time by himself. 

Gaius wandered. He covered most of Rieze Maxia. As Erston Outway, he saw his people and the land he commanded. He stopped and helped in small towns, he assisted in a rockslide, he even minded sheep for a day. Eventually, he found his way to Nia Khera, and walked around, looking at the city.

It had changed, in the ten years since everything happened. Now that people knew how real Maxwell was, the pilgrims flocked to the city.

He arrived on that day—when, ten years before, Milla had become Maxwell.

(Ten years ago, Lin died for Milla to become Maxwell, but Gaius did not begrudge her—she was not the one who let him die. The one who let him die was Gaius, for not stopping him when he had the chance. Gaius, for not protecting him. Gaius, for not telling him what he really thought and how he really felt. Gaius. Always Gaius.)

They recognised him there in town, but didn't attempt to approach him or stop him. Gaius wandered through the houses, helped a young boy out of the river, and then climbed up out of the city, let his feet carry him forward through the Spiritway to Milla's shrine, decorated to celebrate ten years. The men and women there all bowed respectfully as he passed, stepped inside, and paused for a moment. 

He bowed to her seat, empty. Whispered his thanks, and his blessing.

And then he went out the back to look up at the Hollowmount, rising spined into the sky, and Gaius walked, climbed, crouched on the ground, until he came out on the peak, staring from the summit out across the land. He slowly walked forward until he was balanced precariously on the tip of the ledge.

Presa and Agria had died here. He had never come to pay his respects. He bowed to them both, head lowered, eyes closed. They had given their lives for their own reasons, but they had protected him, supported him, helped him. He owed them much.

When it had passed, Gaius stared out from the summit, toward the rocky crags of the mountains of Kanbalar to the north. To the south, the swamp of Fezebel, and then he knew, too far to the East for him to see, the ocean. The wind whipped past his head, and Gaius closed his eyes, listened for a moment to the silence.

If he jumped, would anybody find him? Oh, he knew people would care—but would he care? Maybe for the split second where he was falling through the air to the crags below he would care, maybe the moment that he crumpled and broke from the fall, maybe. 

But Lin would be there, if he did.

It had been the ten loneliest years of his life. He had felt empty for so long, ripped apart from the inside, his bed cold and his heart half-broken.

Eventually, Gaius stepped back from the cliff face. He climbed slowly down.

Forty-two was the sixth year he marked by Lin Long Dau.

 

 

 

The first marginally successful assassination attempt came years later, just after Rowen's death. Gaius had been asleep, and not awake fast enough, and awoke to find a blade slicing into his side. Quick thinking and Elize had saved his life—but shattered his health, his energy, his physique.

Even the world's best living healer couldn't save a punctured lung.

Afterward, for a long time, Gaius tried to ignore what had happened. He went on like he always did, only slower, only with a cane. He thought about how athletic Nachtigal, Rowen, had been at his age, and cursed them. Cursed himself, for being too deep a sleeper.

Almost cursed Lin, only he didn't. Because it had never been Lin's fault, and in his mind, Lin would always be twenty-eight, lively and bright and unstoppable. He had never had to face his own mortality like Gaius had to. He had never meant to die the way he had.

Gaius knew nothing was Lin's fault. But he still cursed the man, in his absence. Cursed Lin for leaving his bed empty and cold, open for assassins. Left Gaius unprotected (which wasn't true at all, but he sometimes felt it was) and cursed himself, for cursing Lin.

Gaius limped around his castle, wheezing for shallow breath, and hated his own failures.

Fifty-eight was the seventh year he marked by Lin Long Dau.

 

 

 

His fiftieth year reigning was quiet and pained. The sudden, unexpected passing of Driselle had shocked many people. She had been in fine health. She had been strong, Gaius' right hand on the south of Rieze Maxia.

Her funeral was only a week before the anniversary of his coronation. The festivities were almost cancelled out of mourning—they would have been, if his better counsel hadn't pointed out that strength was what the people needed most.

So Gaius stood there. Let the people of his country cheer him on, and tried to not look at Elize's eyes, sunken and shellshocked, and tried not to look at Yurgen when the man reenacted the crowning from fifty years before, standing as the head of the clans.

Gaius tried not to think about who should have been standing there, crowning him for a second time. Tried not to think about black hair and a perpetual frown, the smiles hidden in the eyes. He tried not to think about a cloak, shaped like a wing. He tried not to think about a slumped, broken body tossed on the ground like nothing about it mattered.

He failed when he tried not to think about the blood on his face, the blood from his nose, the red retinas of his eyes. He failed when he tried not to think about the old, worn scars that still stood on his hands so many years later, from a rough workman's shovel. He tried not to think about the Hollowmount, standing behind Nia Khera, waiting. For him.

He did not sleep that night.

Seventy-three was the eighth year he marked by Lin Long Dau.

 

 

 

No matter what press said, they couldn't force him to go to Nia Khera for the fiftieth anniversary of Milla's apotheosis. Gaius had refused. He had locked and barricaded his door—sent his heir instead. He stayed inside. Waited for the celebration to pass.

It was late at night that he went. He walked slowly to her shrine, leaning heavily on his cane, taking slow steps that still made his one remaining lung work overtime to catch up, until he stood in front of Milla's shrine and bowed slowly to her.

He wondered what it was like, to have to stay there, between worlds and between times, and watch everyone you loved and cared for die.

Then again, Milla had never quite been like anybody else.

Gaius let his feet carry him, then. He stood on the spot where he had found Lin's body, and found that there was a strange hollow feeling low in his chest, where something had been before. There was an emptiness, an ache, that left him lonely and cold.

He ignored the tears that dotted the ground, that wet the dirt.

He climbed the Hollowmount for the second time. This time Gaius went slowly—so slow. Every step was hard, his arthritis worse than he thought it was, and he wondered how Rowen had used to run around and keep up with all of them when they had been younger like it wasn't effort at all, hardly out of breath. Climbing the vines made him ache and left him winded so long that he almost stopped, several times. 

He made it to the summit before the sun rose, and sat there on the cold outcropping of the stone to watch the first rays breach the horizon. He thought, for a long time, alone in the cold dawn air, about who he had seen come and go in his life. He thought about Presa, how she might have grown old. About Agria, if she ever could have gotten better. About how Jiao would feel when he saw Elize grown up, with her children, to know she counted him as her father. About how Gilland would have felt to see the friendship between Rieze Maxia and Elympios, so hard-won. About whether or not Milla would have stayed, if she had remained human.

He thought about Lin, and didn't think about Lin. He tried not to think about Lin, forever twenty-eight and beautiful, forever twenty-eight and unharmed, except for the blood on his face and the blood in his eyes and the blood on Gaius' hands, for not stopping him or saving him.

He climbed down even more slowly.

He did not stop to think about jumping off. Not this time.

Eighty-two was the ninth year he marked by Lin Long Dau.

 

 

 

When Gaius got sick again, he didn't get better. Elize, Leia, and Jude gave up, at a certain point. They whispered to their friends that he had given up. 

When they found his bed empty, Jude steeled himself and walked slowly, the cold making his bones ache, down from the castle at Kanbalar. Every step felt like lead.

Through the city streets, lively and bustling, children and grandchildren of people that he had known through the years running down the pathways. Strangers, visitors, tourists. He brushed snow away from the gate to the temple—the gate which had remained locked for years, ever since they had found Gaius there, collapsed, in the snow.

The lock was gone now.

Jude pushed the door open, and climbed down the slope toward the temple. It was quiet, the snowfall deep there, except where it had been tramped down by slow, careful feet. Jude followed the path, his heart aching, around the back of the temple.

Gaius was seated on the snow, legs crossed, his long silver hair hanging forward over his shoulders. Age had treated him well, despite his infirmities, to leave him a handsome, lined version of his younger self, his tan skin still mostly unmarked, his body retaining the athleticism that marked his youth, even after so many years of disuse.

When Jude walked around him, he found that Gaius was leaning forward. There were two swords thrust into the snow in front of him—an old, weather-worn blade, the hilt's careful banding still intact after fifty years, sunk deep into the snow. Gaius had planted that there himself, so many years before, when he had buried Wingul.

And next to it, their blades crossed, Gaius' longsword that had been hanging from his hip every day that Jude had known him.

Gaius had been there for a long time. Long enough that the snow had formed a thin layer on his shoulders, on top of his head, along the ridge of his back.

Jude knelt beside him.

He was smiling, small, soft, sad. His eyes were open still, his face relaxed, shoulders slumped—in safety.

Jude smiled back, and reached out to close his eyes. 

Eighty-three was the last year Gaius marked by Lin Long Dau.

 

 

 

They buried Erston Outway beside Lin Long Dau, and left the swords on their graves.

It was what they would have wanted.


End file.
